MINSK, 26 February (BelTA) - The world has spiraled back to a point from which the nuclear threat is clearly visible, Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maksim Ryzhenkov said as he addressed the high-level segment of the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on 26 February, BelTA has learned.
“Since the inception of the Conference on Disarmament, we have gathered in this Hall every year to address its core mission – to keep the world safe from the most devastating forms of warfare using nuclear weapons and other new weapons of mass destruction,” the Belarusian diplomat said.
Indeed, over these 45 years there have been events that have fundamentally changed the political map of the Eurasian continent and have in fact launched disarmament processes. The record of the Conference on Disarmament and its predecessor, the Committee on Disarmament, includes the most important international legal instruments that laid the foundation of the modern international security architecture.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the 55th anniversary of whose entry into force we will celebrate next week (5 March), was the starting point for unprecedented reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the USSR and the United States and the renunciation of nuclear weapons by South Africa, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and my country, Belarus, bringing to zero the nuclear threat and the risks of a possible nuclear confrontation. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which, although it has never entered into force, has led to a near complete cessation of nuclear testing.
“I remember how we all in different parts of the world watched with bated breath and hope for a new world without wars and conflicts after the signing of treaties by the leaders of the USSR and the United States on nuclear disarmament: the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty) and the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty (START). What about today? For the first time since the early 1980s, the world has spiraled back to a point from which the nuclear threat is clearly visible,” the Belarusian minister said.
“Since the inception of the Conference on Disarmament, we have gathered in this Hall every year to address its core mission – to keep the world safe from the most devastating forms of warfare using nuclear weapons and other new weapons of mass destruction,” the Belarusian diplomat said.
Indeed, over these 45 years there have been events that have fundamentally changed the political map of the Eurasian continent and have in fact launched disarmament processes. The record of the Conference on Disarmament and its predecessor, the Committee on Disarmament, includes the most important international legal instruments that laid the foundation of the modern international security architecture.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the 55th anniversary of whose entry into force we will celebrate next week (5 March), was the starting point for unprecedented reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the USSR and the United States and the renunciation of nuclear weapons by South Africa, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and my country, Belarus, bringing to zero the nuclear threat and the risks of a possible nuclear confrontation. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which, although it has never entered into force, has led to a near complete cessation of nuclear testing.
“I remember how we all in different parts of the world watched with bated breath and hope for a new world without wars and conflicts after the signing of treaties by the leaders of the USSR and the United States on nuclear disarmament: the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty) and the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty (START). What about today? For the first time since the early 1980s, the world has spiraled back to a point from which the nuclear threat is clearly visible,” the Belarusian minister said.
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